Appeal No. 2005-2313 9
Application No. 10/052,695
With regard to claim 28, appellants argue that Dietz does not disclose the claimed
first user contact point being driven with a guard signal that reduces noise in the system.
However, the examiner points to column 6, lines 49-53, of Dietz, which discloses that in
order to maximize the signal to noise ratio at the receivers, “The frequencies of the
transmitted signals are kept low, e.g., under 1 MHz.” The examiner states that it “is
understood that this constitutes a guard signal” (answer-page 9). While the examiner
presents a reasonable rationale for concluding that Dietz suggests the claimed “guard
signal,” appellants have shown nothing to convince us of any error in the examiner’s
rationale. Rather, appellants merely allege that Dietz fails to teach or disclose the claimed
limitation, but does not attack the examiner’s rationale in any way.
Accordingly, since the examiner, in our view, has met his initial burden of
establishing a prima facie case of obviousness, the burden shifted to appellants to rebut
such a prima facie case. This, appellants have not done, as a general allegation that a
reference does not teach or disclose such claimed limitations, without more, is not
persuasive of patentability.
Thus, we will sustain the rejection of claim 28 under 35 U.S.C. §103.
With regard to claims 30-35, appellants argue that the claimed limitations are not
taught or suggested by Dietz. In particular, according to appellants, Dietz does not teach
or disclose a touch sensor and contact point that are assocaited with switches, the states
of the switches being used to determine whether the signal driving the contact point is
transferred to the touch sensor by the touch to determine information related to the touch.
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